The "Racist" Shield: Free Speech on Trial

2016-01-25 09:00

Martin Warburg

A great deal of hot air has been generated in the Racism and “whiteness” furors of the past week or two. Sparked by offensive comments by one Penny Sparrow, the daggers were out for any other comments made by whites - preferably of high profile. And victims were found soon enough.

Labelling factual comments made by the likes of Chris Hart and Gareth Cliff as “racist” has become a national sport, which has lost these highly competent people their jobs and been a discredit to their employers (the Standard Bank and M-Net) - who failed to support them under attack. There have been other examples too.

The response of these corporations has been on a par with universities that succumbed to populist demands late last year - spineless and unprincipled. There is no greater sin it now seems, than to be labeled “racist” if you are white - even if it is wholly untrue.

On the other hand, for the most part Black racism is treated with kid gloves and a sense of denial. Some even argue – with impunity - that it cannot exist.

I shall address that subject in my next post.

Where this all began is not difficult to fathom.

White resentment has inevitably built up over the years since the advent of our so called “new democracy” through a process of systemic racial exclusion: exclusion from public sector employment and fewer jobs across the economy (occasioned by racial preferencing, maladministration and misguided economics). Even appointments for national sport teams devalue ability and talent in favour of skin colour. Merit is less important than political favour and although some choose to deny it, that represents institutionalised racism.

That said, these are proximate issues – and not the ultimate cause.

Riding shotgun at the cutting edge of worsening racial attitudes is the fact that the nation is in a distressed state in many theatres of public life, dysfunctional at multiple levels and on the economic skids as a direct result of government policies and actions.

And when competent whites are quarantined from participation in vast swathes of the economy and other areas of public life, and then required to bear witness to dysfunctional outcomes - resentment will thrive.

A recent news item on Times Live bears testimony to such outcomes. It reads – “Rainbow Nation in the dock (Times Live 20 02 2016)” and goes on to point out that “Parliament has passed hundreds of pieces of legislation since the dawn of democracy’ - which are now being brought into question.

It goes on -

Legislation’s effects on four key areas are to be evaluated:

• The triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality;

• The creation and equitable distribution of wealth;

• Land reform, restitution and re-distribution; and

• Nation-building and social cohesion.”

Kgalema Motlanthe will head up a panel of 15 to address these issues.

Such an inquiry is an obvious waste of time and money and the agenda diffused and meaningless. We have seen it all before many times. Heed these words -

"The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings" - Thomas Sowell

If government had the capacity to acknowledge the true cause of everything it has made a hash of – and accept the blame for the plethora of “unexpected outcomes” (a favourite term of the ANCs and a mark of institutionalized incompetence) the solutions would shout at them.

But instead they will stage a talk shop which will issue statements and communiqués, but nothing much else. It escapes the ruling party that in our context rocket science is unnecessary in unmasking the causes of poverty, unemployment and the creation of wealth.

The cause is the erosion of personal liberties and individual sovereignty of the most productive and economically capable members of the nation’s citizenry. A high proportion of them happen to be white – for evolutionary and historical reasons - and the ANC is resolved to do them no favours.

Instead it applies political pressure to fill key positions with dead wood and packs worker ranks (especially the civil service) with over remunerated, low productivity ballast.

So the economy splutters and everyone suffers.

Consider these further quotes from - Professor Thomas Sowell, American economist and social commentator:

"The only thing that will reduce poverty is wealth”

and

“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

These are impossible to refute, and the reasons why resentment is high and white racism out of the closet.

The ANC has put it on the table through its incompetence, maladministration, corruption, misguided ideologies and marginalisation of the nation’s high productivity non-black citizens.

The ruling party is conclusively racist, and with the advent of social media, it is starting to hear home truths that it does not like. And because free speech is more than they can take, they whip out the race card!

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